Lord Alfred Tennyson

1. Is it the wind of the dawn that I hear In the pine overhead? 2. No; but the voice of the deep as it hollows The cliffs of the land. 1. Is there

COME down, O maid, from yonder mountain height: What pleasure lives in height (the shepherd sang), In height and cold, the splendour of the hills? But cease to move so near the Heavens, and

The baby new to earth and sky, What time his tender palm is prest Against the circle of the breast, Has never thought that “this is I”: But as he grows he gathers much,

MY good blade carves the casques of men, My tough lance thrusteth sure, My strength is as the strength of ten, Because my heart is pure. The shattering trumpet shrilleth high, The hard brands

I wage not any feud with Death For changes wrought on form and face; No lower life that earth’s embrace May breed with him, can fright my faith. Eternal process moving on, From state

I envy not in any moods The captive void of noble rage, The linnet born within the cage, That never knew the summer woods: I envy not the beast that takes His license in

Is it, then, regret for buried time That keenlier in sweet April wakes, And meets the year, and gives and takes The colours of the crescent prime? Not all: the songs, the stirring air,

Dosn’t thou ‘ear my ‘erse’s legs, as they canters awaäy? Proputty, proputty, proputty that’s what I ‘ears ’em saäy. Proputty, proputty, proputty Sam, thou’s an ass for thy paaïns: Theer’s moor sense i’ one

From noiseful arms, and acts of prowess done In tournament or tilt, Sir Percivale, Whom Arthur and his knighthood called The Pure, Had passed into the silent life of prayer, Praise, fast, and alms;

The woods decay, the woods decay and fall, The vapours weep their burthen to the ground, Man comes and tills the field and lies beneath, And after many a summer dies the swan. Me

Of old sat Freedom on the heights, The thunders breaking at her feet: Above her shook the starry lights: She heard the torrents meet. There in her place she did rejoice, Self-gather’d in her

I Who would be A mermaid fair, Singing alone, Combing her hair Under the sea, In a golden curl With a comb of pearl, On a throne? II I would be a mermaid fair;

Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean, Tears from the depth of some divine despair Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes, In looking on the happy autumn-fields, And thinking

Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white; Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk; Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font; The firefly wakens, waken thou with me. Now droops

O mighty-mouth’d inventor of harmonies, O skill’d to sing of Time or Eternity, God-gifted organ-voice of England, Milton, a name to resound for ages; Whose Titan angels, Gabriel, Abdiel, Starr’d from Jehovah’s gorgeous armouries,

‘The Bull, the Fleece are cramm’d, and not a room For love or money. Let us picnic there At Audley Court.’ I spoke, while Audley feast Humm’d like a hive all round the narrow

Old Yew, which graspest at the stones That name the under-lying dead, Thy fibres net the dreamless head, Thy roots are wrapt about the bones. The seasons bring the flower again, And bring the

One writes, that “Other friends remain,” That “Loss is common to the race” And common is the commonplace, And vacant chaff well meant for grain. That loss is common would not make My own

To-night the winds begin to rise And roar from yonder dropping day: The last red leaf is whirl’d away, The rooks are blown about the skies; The forest crack’d, the waters curl’d, The cattle

O loyal to the royal in thyself, And loyal to thy land, as this to thee Bear witness, that rememberable day, When, pale as yet, and fever-worn, the Prince Who scarce had plucked his

IN her ear he whispers gaily, ‘If my heart by signs can tell, Maiden, I have watch’d thee daily, And I think thou lov’st me well.’ She replies, in accents fainter, ‘There is none

My dream had never died or lived again. As in some mystic middle state I lay; Seeing I saw not, hearing not I heard: Though, if I saw not, yet they told me all

Queen Guinevere had fled the court, and sat There in the holy house at Almesbury Weeping, none with her save a little maid, A novice: one low light betwixt them burned Blurred by the

MY father left a park to me, But it is wild and barren, A garden too with scarce a tree, And waster than a warren: Yet say the neighbours when they call, It is

Part I On either side the river lie Long fields of barley and of rye, That clothe the wold and meet the sky; And thro’ the field the road runs by To many-tower’d Camelot;

O Love, Love, Love! O withering might! O sun, that from thy noonday height Shudderest when I strain my sight, Throbbing thro’ all thy heat and light, Lo, falling from my constant mind, Lo,

As thro’ the land at eve we went, And pluck’d the ripen’d ears, We fell out, my wife and I, O we fell out I know not why, And kiss’d again with tears. And

How thought you that this thing could captivate? What are those graces that could make her dear, Who is not worth the notice of a sneer, To rouse the vapid devil of her hate?

Live thy life, Young and old, Like yon oak, Bright in spring, Living gold; Summer-rich Then; and then Autumn-changed, Soberer hued Gold again. All his leaves Fall’n at length, Look, he stands, Trunk and

Beautiful city Beautiful city, the centre and crater of European confusion, O you with your passionate shriek for the rights of an equal Humanity, How often your Re-volution has proven but E-volution Roll’d again

Morn in the wake of the morning star Came furrowing all the orient into gold. We rose, and each by other drest with care Descended to the court that lay three parts In shadow,

Deep on the convent-roof the snows Are sparkling to the moon: My breath to heaven like vapour goes; May my soul follow soon! The shadows of the convent-towers Slant down the snowy sward, Still

THE splendour falls on castle walls And snowy summits old in story: The long light shakes across the lakes, And the wild cataract leaps in glory. Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,

Once more the gate behind me falls; Once more before my face I see the moulder’d Abbey-walls, That stand within the chace. Beyond the lodge the city lies, Beneath its drift of smoke; And

THE groundflame of the crocus breaks the mould, Fair Spring slides hither o’er the Southern sea, Wavers on her thin stem the snowdrop cold That trembles not to kisses of the bee: Come Spring,

O you chorus of indolent reviewers, Irresponsible, indolent reviewers, Look, I come to the test, a tiny poem All composed in a metre of Catullus, All in quantity, careful of my motion, Like the

Leodogran, the King of Cameliard, Had one fair daughter, and none other child; And she was the fairest of all flesh on earth, Guinevere, and in her his one delight. For many a petty

Athelstan King, Lord among Earls, Bracelet-bestower and Baron of Barons, He with his brother, Edmund Atheling, Gaining a lifelong Glory in battle, Slew with the sword-edge There by Brunanburh, Brake the shield-wall, Hew’d the

Thy voice is heard thro’ rolling drums, That beat to battle where he stands; Thy face across his fancy comes, And gives the battle to his hands: A moment, while the trumpets blow, He

Of old sat Freedom on the heights, The thunders breaking at her feet: Above her shook the starry lights: She heard the torrents meet. There in her place she did rejoice, Self-gather’d in her

Oh, yet we trust that somehow good Will be the final end of ill, To pangs of nature, sins of will, Defects of doubt, and taints of blood; That nothing walks with aimless feet;

Sunset and evening star, And one clear call for me! And may there be no moaning of the bar, When I put out to sea, But such a tide as moving seems asleep, Too

Love is and was my Lord and King, And in his presence I attend To hear the tidings of my friend, Which every hour his couriers bring. Love is and was my King and

I. And Willy, my eldest-born, is gone, you say, little Anne? Ruddy and white, and strong on his legs, he looks like a man. And Willy’s wife has written: she never was over-wise, Never

A city clerk, but gently born and bred; His wife, an unknown artist’s orphan child One babe was theirs, a Margaret, three years old: They, thinking that her clear germander eye Droopt in the

Now, scarce three paces measured from the mound, We stumbled on a stationary voice, And ‘Stand, who goes?’ ‘Two from the palace’ I. ‘The second two: they wait,’ he said, ‘pass on; His Highness

With one black shadow at its feet, The house thro’ all the level shines, Close-latticed to the brooding heat, And silent in its dusty vines: A faint-blue ridge upon the right, An empty river-bed

All along the valley, stream that flashest white, Deepening thy voice with the deepening of the night, All along the valley, where thy waters flow, I walk’d with one I loved two and thirty

You ask me, why, tho’ ill at ease, Within this region I subsist, Whose spirits falter in the mist, And languish for the purple seas. It is the land that freemen till, That sober-suited

Calm is the morn without a sound, Calm as to suit a calmer grief, And only thro’ the faded leaf The chestnut pattering to the ground: Calm and deep peace on this high wold,

King Arthur made new knights to fill the gap Left by the Holy Quest; and as he sat In hall at old Caerleon, the high doors Were softly sundered, and through these a youth,

So all day long the noise of battle roll’d Among the mountains by the winter sea; Until King Arthur’s table, man by man, Had fallen in Lyonnesse about their Lord, King Arthur: then, because

Come into the garden, Maud, For the black bat, Night, has flown, Come into the garden, Maud, I am here at the gate alone; And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad, And the musk

I built my soul a lordly pleasure-house, Wherein at ease for aye to dwell. I said, “O Soul, make merry and carouse, Dear soul, for all is well.” A huge crag-platform, smooth as burnish’d

IT was the time when lilies blow, And clouds are highest up in air, Lord Ronald brought a lily-white doe To give his cousin, Lady Clare. I trow they did not part in scorn

LIKE souls that balance joy and pain, With tears and smiles from heaven again The maiden Spring upon the plain Came in a sun-lit fall of rain. In crystal vapour everywhere Blue isles of

It little profits that an idle king, By this still hearth, among these barren crags, Matched with an aged wife, I mete and dole Unequal laws unto a savage race, That hoard, and sleep,

Break, break, break, On thy cold gray stones, O Sea! And I would that my tongue could utter The thoughts that arise in me. O, well for the fisherman’s boy, That he shouts with

Again at Christmas did we weave The holly round the Christmas hearth; The silent snow possess’d the earth, And calmly fell our Christmas-eve: The yule-log sparkled keen with frost, No wing of wind the

That story which the bold Sir Bedivere, First made and latest left of all the knights, Told, when the man was no more than a voice In the white winter of his age, to

That story which the bold Sir Bedivere, First made and latest left of all the knights, Told, when the man was no more than a voice In the white winter of his age, to

The path by which we twain did go, Which led by tracts that pleased us well, Thro’ four sweet years arose and fell, From flower to flower, from snow to snow: And we with

Home they brought her warrior dead: She nor swooned, nor uttered cry: All her maidens, watching, said, ‘She must weep or she will die.’ Then they praised him, soft and low, Called him worthy

Home they brought her warrior dead: She nor swoon’d nor utter’d cry: All her maidens, watching, said, “She must weep or she will die.” Then they praised him, soft and low, Call’d him worthy

Comrades, leave me here a little, while as yet ‘t is early morn: Leave me here, and when you want me, sound upon the bugle-horn. ‘T is the place, and all around it, as

I. Half a league, half a league, Half a league onward, All in the valley of Death Rode the six hundred. ‘Forward, the Light Brigade! Charge for the guns!’ he said: Into the valley

I sometimes hold it half a sin To put in words the grief I feel; For words, like Nature, half reveal And half conceal the Soul within. But, for the unquiet heart and brain,

‘Your ringlets, your ringlets, That look so golden-gay, If you will give me one, but one, To kiss it night and day, The never chilling touch of Time Will turn it silver-gray; And then

Ask me no more: the moon may draw the sea; The cloud may stoop from heaven and take the shape, With fold to fold, of mountain or of cape; But O too fond, when

O Sorrow, cruel fellowship, O Priestess in the vaults of Death, O sweet and bitter in a breath, What whispers from thy lying lip? “The stars,” she whispers, “blindly run; A web is wov’n

So closed our tale, of which I give you all The random scheme as wildly as it rose: The words are mostly mine; for when we ceased There came a minute’s pause, and Walter